23 DECEMBER 1876, Page 18

THE SHADOW OF THE SWORD.*

Mn. BUCHANAN is a poet, and this romance may be to some extent regarded as a prose poem. The pictures with which the story abounds are bright with the fancy •that finds its most natural expression in verse ; the colouring is that of a poetical artist, and the weird-like imagination which throws its lurid light upon one page, and the blackness of a great cloud upon another, is that of a man who has seen visions and dreamt dreams. How far Mr. Buchanan has been influenced by other writers of fiction it is difficult to say ; the most original author owes something to his predecessors, and in The Shadow of the Sword weare occa- sionally reminded of Victor Hugo. Perhaps the likeness is due to the passion felt by the great French poet for the sea, and for the solemnity of a wild and solitary sea-coast. Mr. Buchanan, too, is never so impressive, and never carries the reader along with him so readily, as when he feels the salt spray upon his cheeks, and hears the thunder of the waves as they burst upon the cliffs, or rush into secret caverns. The charm of the romance before us is due, we think, mainly to the profound love of nature that pervades it. The characters are life-like, and though several of them are mere sketches, they are drawn with a skilful hand ; but the men and women, with the exception of Rohan and Marcelle, the hero and heroine, have less power over us than the vivid representations of nature which give a character to the narrative. The scene is laid "at Kromlaix, in the loneliest and saddest corner of the Breton coast." The time at which the tale opens is after Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. Rohan Gwenfern, a young and handsome peasant, is distinguished for his great personal strength and agility. He climbs the pre- cipices like a mountain-goat, delights in the tempests, fears neither wet nor cold, " swims like a fish, crawls like a fly," and seems to be a portion of the nature in which his strong heart re- joices. He is as gentle as he is brave, is unwilling to injure bird or beast, and has a tender affection, which has been ripening from childhood, for his pretty cousin Marcelle. She is brave, too, in her way, would dare any danger at the call of duty, and has a pro- found reverence for the Virgin and for the great Napoleon. This loyalty to the Emperor is not surprising, for had not her uncle, Corporal Derval, fought in his wars, left one of his legs at Austerlitz, and returned home to tell how fields are won, and to recount the immortal deeds of his hero on every possible occasion ? On this subject the cousins were divided. A certain Master Arfoll, an itinerant schoolmaster by profession, a man with a spectral face and a wild, fitful light in his eyes, had imbued Rohan with many heterodox opinions, and among the rest, with * The Shadow of the Sword: a Romance. By Robert Buchanan. 3 vols. Landon: , Bentley and Son. 1876.

an utter horror of war. So it came to pass that while Marcelle looked upon Napoleon as a sort of divinity, Rohan, in his secret heart, regarded him as a devil. Great sorrows are in store for both, and we seem dimly to see them even in the early pages of the story—but first of all we have a pretty domestic idyll. Not far from the little village on the wild sea-shore was a natural cathedral, which could be entered dry-shod only at low water, and the chief entrance was called the Gate of St. Gildas

:- "Two gigantic walls of crimson granite jut out from the mighty cliff- wall, and meet together far out on the edge of the sea, and where the sea touches them it has hollowed their extremity into a mighty arch, hung with dripping moss. Entering here at low water, one sees the vast walls towering on every side, carved by wind and water into fantastic niches and many-coloured marble forms ; with no painted windows, it is true, but with the blue, cloudless heaven for a roof far above, where the passing seagull hovers, small as a butterfly, in full sunlight."

One day before the love has been declared that each has felt, Rohan and Marcelle are sitting in this cathedral, and the young man tells her how he has climbed the precipitous walls to a cave above ; how from thence he has even reached the very top of the cliff, and how, overtaken by the tide, he has swum out at the gate through the boiling flood. The sea advances as they talk, and Rohan, finding the water knee-deep and growing deeper, has the sweet pleasure of taking the girl up in his strong arms :-

"' Yon are heavier than yon used to be,' he said, laughing; while Marcell.), gathering her apron up with one hand, clung tightly round his neck with the other. Slowly and surely, step by step, he waded with her seaward along the moss-hung wall ; he seemed in no hurry, perhaps because he had such pleasure in his burthen ; but at every step he went deeper, and when he reached the end of the wall the water reached to his hips.—' If you should stumble l' cried Marcelle.- ' I shall not stumble' answered Rohan, quietly. Marcella was not so sure, and clung to him vigorously. She was not afraid, for there was no danger ; but she bad the true feminine dread of a wetting. Place her In any circumstance of real peril, call up the dormant courage within her, and she would face the very sea with defiance, with pride, dying like a heroine. Meantime, she was timid, disliking even a splash. The wall was soon rounded, and Rohan was wading with his burthen to the shore, so that he was soon only knee-deep again. His heart was palpitating madly, his eyes and cheeks were burning, for the thrill of his delicious load filled him with strange ecstacy ; and he lin- gered in the water, unwilling to resign the treasure he held within his arms. 'Rohan I quick 1 do not linger!' It was then that he turned his face up to hers for the first time • and lo 1 he saw a sight which brought the bright blood to his own cheeks, and made him tremble like a tree beneath his load. Porphyro, gazing on his mistress,

" Half hidden like a mermaid in sea-weed," and watching her naked beauty gleam like marble in the moonlight, felt no fairer revelation. Rohan, too, felt faint.' And why ? It was only this—in the excitement and struggle of the passage, Marcelle's white coif had fallen back, and her blaok hair, loosened from its fasten- ings, had fallen down in one dark shower, raining alike round cheeks and neck ; and cheeks and neck, when Rohan raised his eyes, were burning crimson with a delicious shame. Have we not said that the hair of a Breton maid is virgin, and is as hallowed as an Eastern woman's face, and is only to be seen by the eyes of him she loves ? Rohan's head swam round. As his face turned up, burning like her own, the sacred hair fell upon his eyes, and the scent of it—who knows not the divine perfume even scentless things give out when touched by Love?—the scent of it was sweet in his nostrils, while the thrill of its touch passed into his very blood. And under his hands the live form trembled, while his eyes fed on the blushing face. " Rohan ! quick ; set me down ! " He stood now on dry land, but he still held her in his aims. The sweet hair floated to his lips, and he kissed it madly, while the fire grew brighter on her face. I love you, Marcella!' "

Even at this first awakening of a new life, Marcelle displays the force of her character and the strength of her prejudices. She discovers to her horror that Rohan does not think as she thinks of the "good Emperor," and suddenly turning to him with more anger

than lave in her beautiful eyes, she asks if he hates Napoleon. "God forbid I" he answered. " I hate no man ; but why ?" Her cheeks went white as death as she replied,—" Because then I should hate you, as I hate all the enemies of God, as I hate all the enemies of the good Emperor."

News arrives of a fresh conscription. Hitherto the only sons of widowed mothers had been spared, and Rohan was an only son ; but now there was to be no longer any exemption, and Rohan finds that the time has come in which at any risk he must carry out a long-formed resolution. Master Arfoll's teaching has sunk into his heart. He hates bloodshed, and is determined, at the risk of being branded as a coward, of losing his love, and of being shot down as a deserter, to resist the Emperor's call. " They may kill me, but they cannot make me kill !" he exclaims to Arfoll. Of course there is the chance that he may draw a fortu- nate number from the ballot-box, but Rohan will not even take his chance, but on the day of the conscription, to the amazement of Marcella and the horror of her uncle the corporal, is nowhere

to be found. The girl draws for her lover, and draws a fatal number but the grief of losing him is alleviated by the thought that lie will fight for the Emperor, and have two of her brothers

for comrades. Rohan, meanwhile, is revolving his fate upon the sea, and the chapter that describes his feelings as he sails far from land, and calms his agitation with the excitement of rapid motion, is one of the finest in the romance. There are exciting scenes after this, for Rohan, defying the Emperor and all his myrmidons, is hunted like a wild beast, and only saves his life by the most perilous feats, while encountering, at the same time, the most terrible privations. And now the whole force of the writer is expended upon his hero, who is branded as a coward, and who has no place of security or shelter except in the well-

nigh inaccessible caverns of St. Gildas. Marcelle, though the love is still warm in her heart, is in bitter sorrow and perplexity, for is

not Rohan a blasphemer of God and the Emperor? "If I thought he was a coward," she says, "I should hate him for ever and ever ;" but the simple girl believes he is bewitched, and so gathers com- fort, until she hears, or seems to hear, the confession of cowardice from his own lips. To complete her misery, Marcelle is tor- mented by another lover, a bad' man who is Rohan's evil genius, and uses the most pitiful arts to bring him to justice. It is this man, Mikel Grallon by name, who discovers that Rohan is con- cealed in the cathedral of St. Gildas, it is he who finds out how his mother has contrived to feed him, and how, when she is watched too closely, food is carried in the shaggy coat of the goat Jannedik, an affectionate animal, who had found her master's place of concealment. The siege follows, but Rohan keeps his tormentors at bay by hurling down stones and breaking off the ladders they plant against the cliff. At last to his horror he kills a. man, and this deed weighs upon him more than all his other- miseries. One night in a starving state he descends to his mother's cottage, where also he finds Marcelle. Rohan is scarcely in his right senses now, and his low, mindless laugh is painful to hear.. After a while, restored by food, he weeps like a child :— "Suddenly, while they watched him in awe and pain, his attitude changed, and he sprang wildly to his feet, listening with that fierce look upon his face which they at first had feared so much. Despite the. sound of wind and rain, his quick ear had detected footfalls on the shingle outside the cottage. Beforo they could say another, word, a knock came to the door. ' Pat out the light 1' whispered Marcella ; and in a moment Rohan had extinguished the swinging lamp, which, indeed, had almost burnt out already. The cottage was now quite dark ; and while Rohm, creeping across the floor, concealed himself in the blackest. corner of the chamber, Marcella crossed over to the door. ' Within there cried a voice. ' Answer, I say ! Will you keep a good Christian dripping here all night like a drowned rat ?'—'You cannot enter,' cried Marcella; it is too late, and we are abed.' The answer was a heavy blow on the door, which was only secured by a frail latch. know your voice, Marcella Derval, and I have come all this way to find you. out. I bare news to tell you ; so open at once. It is I, Mikel Grallon Whoever you are, go away!' answered Marcelle in agony.—' Go away?' Not I, till I have seen and spoken with you. Open the door, or I with break it open—ah I' As he spoke, the man dealt heavy blows upon the frail woodwork, and suddenly, before Marcella could interfere, the latch yielded, and the door, to which there was no bolt, flew open. Mother Gwenfern uttered a scream, while amid. a roar of wind and a shower of rain, Mikel Grallon entered in. But white as death Marcella blocked. up the entrance, and when the man's heavy form fell against her, pushed it fiercely back. ' What brings you here at this time, Mikel Grallon r she demanded. Stand still—you shall not pass another step. Alt,. that Alain, or Jannick, or even my uncle were here, you would not dare ? Begone, or I shall strike you, though I am only a girl.' The reply was an imbecile laugh ; and now for the first time Marcella per- ceived that Grallon was under the influence of strong drink. His. usually subdued and deliberate air was exchanged for one of impudent audacity, and his voice was insolent, threatening, and devil-may-care.

Strike me !' he cried huskily ; do not think your little hand will hurt much; but I know you do not mean it,,—it is only the way of you women. Ah, my little Marcelle, you and I understand each other, and it is all settled ; it is all settled, and your uncle is pleased. Now that that coward of a cousin is done for, you will listen to reason,—will you not, Marcella Grallon ? Ah, yes, for • Marcelle Grallon' sounds prettier than Marcelle Dorval !' His arms were around her, and his hot face was pressed close to hers, when suddenly a hand interposed, and seizing Grallon by the throat with terrific grip, choked him off. It was the work of a moment ; and Grallon, looking up in stupefaction found himself in the hold of a man who was gazing down upon hint with eyes of murderous rage. Then his blood went cold with terror, for even in the dimness of the room he recognised Gwenfern. ' Help ! the deserter ! help he gasped; but one iron hand was on his throat, and another was uplifted to smite and bruise him down."

We will not pursue the tale to its mournful, but not hopeless conclusion. Enough to say that a happier time arrives for Rohan when the Emperor is carried to Elba, that again he is seized by despair on the announcement of his return to France, and that when the hunted man finds rest at last, his hair has grown grey with sorrow, his face is marked with strange furrows, a cloud ob- scures his soul, and his talk seems incoherent. Marcelle is by him,. and hopes for better days, as he is daily growing more gentle. She knows at least that Rohan is no coward, for when the flood came and swept through their village, had he not performed feats of daring, and saved the life of his beloved one at the infinite peril of his own ? This bare outline of a fine romance may induce our

readers to tarn to its pages. They will not be disappointed, if they are willing for a season to exchange the realism of modern fiction for the poetical conceptions, the exciting incidents, the strong passions, and glowing fancy that belong to high romance.